Table Of ContentUnity UI Cookbook
Over 60 recipes to help you create professional and
exquisite UIs to make your games more immersive
Francesco Sapio
BIRMINGHAM - MUMBAI
Unity UI Cookbook
Copyright © 2015 Packt Publishing
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First published: December 2015
Production reference: 1181215
Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.
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ISBN 978-1-78588-582-2
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Cover image by Francesco Sapio and Lauren S. Ferro
Credits
Author Project Coordinator
Francesco Sapio Nidhi Joshi
Reviewers Proofreader
Jack Donovan Safis Editing
Lauren S. Ferro
Indexer
Commissioning Editor Rekha Nair
Neil Alexander
Graphics
Acquisition Editor Jason Monteiro
Nadeem Bagban
Production Coordinator
Content Development Editor Aparna Bhagat
Mayur Pawanikar
Cover Work
Technical Editor Aparna Bhagat
Deepti Tuscano
Copy Editor
Vikrant Phadke
About the Author
Francesco Sapio obtained his computer science and control engineering degree from the
Sapienza University of Rome, Italy, with a couple of semesters in advance, scoring summa
cum laude. Now he is studying a master's of science and engineering in artificial intelligence
and robotics.
Besides this, he is a Unity3D expert and skilled game designer, as well as an experienced
user of the major graphics programs.
Recently, he has been a reviewer of the book Unity Game Development Scripting,
Packt Publishing.
Francesco is also a musician and composer, especially of soundtracks for short films and
video games. For several years, he worked as an actor and dancer. He was a guest of honor
at the theatre Brancaccio in Rome.
In addition, he is a very active person, having volunteered as a children's entertainer at the
Associazione Culturale Torraccia in Rome. Also, he gives private lessons in mathematics and
music to high-school and university students.
Finally, Francesco loves math, philosophy, logic, and puzzle solving, but most of all, creating
video games — thanks to his passion for game designing and programming.
You can find him at https://linkedin.com/pub/francesco-sapio/b8/5b/365.
I'm deeply thankful to my parents for their infinite patience, enthusiasm
and support for me throughout my life. Moreover, I'm thankful to the rest of
my family, in particular to my grandparents, since they always encouraged
me to do better in my life with the Latin expressions "Ad Maiora" and "Per
aspera ad astra".
Besides this, I would like to thank my old Acquisition Editor for introducing
me into this world and my current Content Developer for his kindness and
patience.
Finally, a huge thanks to all the special people are around me who I love,
in particular to my girlfriend; I'm grateful for all your help in everything.
About the Reviewers
Jack Donovan is a game developer and software engineer who has been working with the
Unity3D engine since its third major release. He studied at Champlain College in Burlington,
Vermont, USA, where he received a bachelor of science in game programming. Jack currently
works at IrisVR, a virtual reality start-up in New York City, where he is developing software that
allows architects to generate virtual reality experiences from their CAD models or blueprints.
Before IrisVR, he worked on a small independent game team with fellow students. At that
time, he also wrote the book OUYA Game Development By Example by Packt Publishing.
Lauren S. Ferro is a gamification consultant and designer with 10 years of experience
designing interactive game and game-like applications across a variety of contexts. She has
worked on, designed, and implemented strategies for a range of different purposes, from
professional development to recommendation systems and educational games. She is an
active researcher in the area of gamification, player profiling, and user-centred game design.
Lauren runs workshops for both the general public and companies that focus on designing
user-centered games and game-like applications. She is also the developer of the game
design resource Gamicards (which will soon be available for purchase).
You can contact her on Twitter at @R3nza. Her website is www.laurensferro.com and her
e-mail ID is [email protected].
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Table of Contents
Preface v
Chapter 1: UI Essentials 1
Introduction 1
Setting up a 2D texture to be a bordered sprite 2
Resizing the UI according to the screen size and resolution 5
Adding and placing an image in the UI 6
Adding a circular mask to an image 10
Making an image scrollable 12
Making text scrollable with a vertical slider 14
Selecting buttons through the keyboard 20
Using UI layout components 23
Chapter 2: Implementing Counters and Health Bars 27
Introduction 27
Implementing a score counter 28
Implementing a lives counter 32
Creating a modular coin counter 36
Creating a symbolic lives counter 42
Implementing a linear health bar 46
Implementing a radial health bar 50
Creating a health bar with armor 52
Using multiple bars to make a multibar 56
Developing a kingdom hearts health bar style 60
Chapter 3: Implementing Timers 65
Introduction 65
Implementing a numeric timer 66
Creating a linear timer 69
Implementing a radial timer 72
Creating a mixed timer 74
i
Table of Contents
Creating a well-formatted timer 78
Developing a well-formatted countdown that changes 81
Chapter 4: Creating Panels for Menus 87
Introduction 87
Creating a toggle group 87
Showing the slider value as a percentage 90
Adding upper and lower bounds to the slider 93
Making UI elements affected by different lights 98
Making a draggable panel 102
Making a resizable panel 103
Creating a drag-and-drop element 107
Developing an MP3 player 110
Chapter 5: Decorating the UI 117
Introduction 117
Creating an extendable element with a final fade effect 117
Creating an extendable and rotating element with a final fade effect 121
Creating bars that go up and down 126
Making a floating UI element 131
Adding shadows to text 134
Adding outlines to text 137
Chapter 6: Animating the UI 141
Introduction 141
Appearing and disappearing menu 141
Creating a menu with an entrance transition 146
Creating a menu with an idle animation 150
Animating a button when the cursor is over it 151
Creating a pop-up menu 154
Animating hearts of the symbolic lives counter 157
Changing animation of the hearts of the symbolic lives counter
through the script 159
Chapter 7: Applying Runtime Customizations 163
Introduction 163
Making a button that changes color 164
Creating a slider that changes colors gradually 166
Creating a slide shower using a discrete slider 169
Creating a slider that changes a single color channel 175
Making an input field with personal text validation at runtime 182
Making an input field for a password with a lower bound limit
for characters 190
Changing the cursor at runtime 194
ii
Table of Contents
Chapter 8: Implementing Advance HUDs 199
Introduction 199
Creating a distance displayer 199
Creating a directional radar 209
Developing a subtitle shower 216
Chapter 9: Diving into 3D UIs 223
Introduction 223
Creating a 3D menu 223
Adding a smooth tilt effect 227
Creating and placing a 3D UI 231
Making an animated 3D UI warning 233
Chapter 10: Creating Minimaps 239
Introduction 239
Creating a minimap 240
Implementing advanced features for minimaps 245
Index 259
iii
